Across that brown, sunburnt stretch of meadow-land when it was white
and cold, old David Windom had carried the stiff body of Edward
Crown,--and returning had borne the soft, limp figure of his stricken
child. Courtney permitted his fancy to indulge in calculation. He
followed with his eye what must have been the path of the slayer
on that dreadful night. It led, no doubt, to the spot on which he
now was standing, for just behind him was the suggestion of a narrow,
weed-lined path that wormed its way through the trees toward the top
of the great rock. He decided that one day soon he would disregard
that sign on the gate, and climb up to the strange burial place of
Edward Crown and Alix the Second.
He had tested his increasing strength and endurance by rowing up
the river with Rosabel for a fair view of the hole in the face of
the rock--Quill's Window. It was plainly visible from the river, a
wide black gash in the almost perpendicular wall that reached well
above the fringe of trees and underbrush along the steep bank of
the stream.
He tried to picture Quill as he sat in his strange abode, a hundred
years ago, cowering over the fire or reading perhaps by the light
of a huge old-fashioned lanthorn. He thought of him hanging by the
neck back in the dark recess, victim either of his own conscience
or the implacable hatred of the enemy "down the river.
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